2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient's Catalog No. 4. Title and Subtitle Visual Displays and Selective Attention: Do the Elderly Benefit if the Information is Flashing?

People show substantial decrements in controlled processes with advanced age. However, there is evidence that automatic processes are more resistant to aging. The decline in controlled processes is likely to affect driving-a task that is dependent on efficient information processing. Consequently, older drivers could benefit if parts of the driving task can be designed so that they can be performed in an automatic way. The present laboratory study investigated the effect of a flashing stimulus on its efficiency to attract the subject's attention in an automatic manner. There were two groups of subjects: sixteen older drivers with a mean age of 70, and sixteen younger drivers with a mean age of 29. They had to perform a two-alternative, forced-choice task, which involved responding to an arrow pointing left or right. The response time was measured for different arrow presentation modes (flashing vs. steady), workload conditions (with and without an additional tracking task), distracter conditions (with and without), and monitor locations (center vs. periphery of the visual field). The results showed that flashing stimuli were not processed in an automati